John Davidson Poems

John Davidson
John Davidson (April 11, 1857 – March 23, 1909), Scottish poet and playwright,
best known for his ballads.
He was born at Barrhead, East Renfrewshire as the son of a Dissenting minister
and entered the chemical department of a sugar refinery in Greenock in his 13th
year, returning after one year to school as a pupil teacher. He studied at the
University of Edinburgh. He was afterwards engaged in teaching at various
places, and having taken to literature went in 1889 to London.
He achieved a reputation as a writer of poems and plays of marked individuality
and vivid realism. His poems include In a Music Hall (1891), Fleet Street
Eclogues (1893), Baptist Lake (1894), New Ballads (1896), The Last Ballad
(1898), The Triumph of Mammon (1907), and among his plays are Bruce (1886),
Smith: a Tragic Farce (1888), Godfrida (1898). He also wrote novels. From 1901
he wrote pessimistic blank verse Testaments. He was given a Civil List pension
in 1906.
Davidson disappeared on March 27, 1909, under circumstances which left little
doubt that under the influence of mental depression he had drowned himself at
Penzance. Among his papers was found the manuscript of a new work, Fleet Street
Poems, with a letter containing the words, "This will be my last book." His body
was discovered a few months later.